SWNS photographer captures harrowing pictures of French refugee camp

Last week award winning SWNS photographer Adam Gray visited a lesser known migrant camp, known as Grand-Synthe, Dunkirk, amidst reports that days of torrential rain had left the refugees living in a horrendous mudbath. Adam captured images of children living amongst polluted swamps, piles of rubbish, and exposed to the elements.

Above, a young migrant boy walks through awful muddy conditions at the Grand-Synthe migrant camp in Dunkirk, France, caused by several days of torrential rain. These harrowing pictures show the desperate conditions at the French refugee camp – which has become become a mudbath due to torrential rain.

The Grand-Synthe settlement in Dunkirk is home to around 2,500 migrants who are living in conditions so squalid that aid workers say it is on the brink of a sanitation crisis. It is described as “far worse than the Calais jungle” but has largely gone unnoticed until now.

Disturbing images show young children wading knee-deep through thick mud while their families huddle around fires, surrounded by ever-growing piles of rubbish. In some places, mounds of sodden clothing, mud-soaked duvets and shoes swallowed by the swamp sit next to polluted streams and marquees selling food. Elsewhere, metal sheets form makeshift paths between groups of tents in the flooded field, which has been battered by constant rain in recent weeks.

Grande-Synthe camp has only two drinking water points and 26 toilets, which is roughly one per 100 people – five times fewer than the bare minimum in other refugee camps. The occupants, who are mostly Iraqi Kurds with some Syrians and Persians, live in squalid marshland conditions which are rife with disease and infested by rats. There are no healthcare facilities whatsoever, though doctors from Médecins Sans Frontières‎ (MSF) visit the camp a few times a week to treat the sick.